Does anyone have BIG fights about TINY issues?

Sorry for so many questions/posts today 🙁 I go on splurges like this and then dont post for weeks lol…anyway

I notice that SO and I fight way too often, over things that aren’t important. I’m assuming we both have short fuses or something- the other day I wanted to get quarters at Trader Joe’s so I could do laundry. SO was paying for groceries that day, so he said he would just ask for cash back. However he used his credit card instead of debit so we couldn’t get cash back. I said, “Okay, let me just buy a stick of gum with my debit card and we’ll get it that way.” He said he didn’t want to do that, that he didn’t want to “go all the way back” (we were still in the store) and that I should just look for quarters around the house. I felt like he was being unnecessarily difficult (I think he was harboring resentment about me buying a box of blueberries without looking at price tag) so I was in a really shitty mood for the next few minutes, knowing I wouldn’t be able to do laundry.

In my shitty mood, my SO decided he wanted Starbuck’s and since he was holding the groceries he asked me to look up the nearest Starbucks’ on my phone. I got mad since I hate looking stuff up for him and then he rightfully pointed out he wasn’t able to do it because of groceries. But I was still mad that he refused to let me get cash back at Trader Joe’s, but I was supposed to be fine with getting Starbucks’s solely for his pleasure (I hate coffee). At that moment, a huge gust of wind came by and I just shouted out, “What the fuck?! This wind is ridiculous!” By the time we got to Starbuck’s, he was straight-up giving me the silent treatment because I supposedly “made a scene” about the wind (we live in a crowded city where people make scenes constantly, but I got his point). Once we were in Starbuck’s, he was being very cold to me so I asked him what I had done wrong. He kept saying he was fine, but was obviously still mad. Even though I was whispering, he told me I was “making a scene” and that “everyone was staring” and then we both walked home without speaking to each other.

I just feel like this TOTALLY could have been avoided on both sides. What are some things you guys would say each of us needs to change in order to stop having these fights? It almost ruined our whole day, and it just started with some laundry quarters!!

I know what you mean. If i get in a fight about something stupid it’s pretty much completely about me either being in a bad mood to begin with, or being too controlling about something stupid. For example, DH puts the cutting board in a weird spot, and sometimes instead of letting it go or quietly moving it, I make a snippy comment to the effect of “why can’t you put the cutting board over here?!” Totally stupid.

I think when you break this stuff down, you can always see where you went wrong. He should have chilled out about the quarters and just let you buy the gum. You should have looked up the Starbucks thing without grumbling. If you two hadn’t been getting tense, you wouldn’t have yelled at the wind. You shouldn’t be passive agressive by asking what you did wrong, when you know that you’ve both been unkind to each other. It’s pretty obvious, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy to change those little habits.

The best advice I can give you is this:

1) Preventative: when you’re about to speak to your spouse unkindly, or when you feel yourself getting in a bad mood, take a deep breath and ask yourself if it’s worth it. Force yourself to smile, it will trick your brain into thinking you feel better. Then say something nice to your SO, even if it’s totally unrelated. For example, when he says, “can you look up the nearest Starbucks” and your blood pressure starts to rise, stop, breath, smile, and tell him he has a cute butt. That should release the tension. Then look up the dang Starbucks location.

2) Restorative: inevitably, it happens and you get in a tiff about something stupid. When you’ve realized it, don’t punish him by saying “what did I do wrong.” Say this, “This is a silly fight and I’m sorry that I stated it. I love you and I want to have a great day with you today. Can we start over?” Don’t ask him to appologize or take fault. He probably will, but not if you force him.

God, I need to be so much better at this stuff. I’m lucky that my DH is very laid back and unemotional. If he were like me we’d be fighting all the time! 😀

@anon00: I know! Sometimes I look at the way my parents fight and I think, yup, I learned my poor impulse control from you two. We’re a bunch of firey Italians! My poor, laid back california boy husband shouldn’t be subjected to that!

I think it is impossible not to get in stupid fights. At this point FI and I have been together over 7 years it is extremely common for us to get at each other’s throats about small ridiculous things. However, 10 minutes later we have apologized, forgot it has happened and gone about our merry way. I think if resentment is being held onto getting into fights about nothing than you have an issue.

@anon00: DH and I are both really stubborn and we used to have this issue, but honestly the best thing we ever did was learn to walk away. If something is getting too heated, just walk away! Take a few minutes to cool off somewhere on your own. Go take a shower, take a dog for a walk, etc.

Also, talk openly about when things upset you and why. After you both are cooled off, be like, “Hey, that really bothered me because I didn’t feel like you were listening to me”. Being able to talk things out has helped us out tremendously. And I don’t just mean barely touching on subjects. Make it clear why something bothers you.

@cbgg: try fighting about guacamole 🙂 we did that. in my defense, I had asked him repeatedly if he wanted anything when I was ordering mexican food from local place. when I say repeatedly I really mean like over and over and I even offered up suggestions because I know him, he says “no im good” and then when I have my food or whoever else has it he’s all “oh that looks good! im so hungry!” really?! so this day I was hungry and tired (not a good combo) and I ordered and that was that. Well I get my small order of guac and chips and two tacos. That was my dinner. So I lay everything out and of course there comes FI like “oooh that guac looks good let me try it!” which isn’t really him asking just more of a warning. He proceeds to eat like 5 huge chip fulls of my guac leaving me a little pile left in the container. Then he asks for a bite of one of my tacos. Are you kidding me?! I had an all out meltdown over that guac. We legit fought over that food. Not becuase im a stingy bitch but because I freaking asked him like 8 million times if he wanted food and he turned it all down and then wanted to eat mine! wtf!

So yes, we fight about stupid stuff all the time.

He got mad at me once because I asked him “hey was that shirt where I told you it was?”. He responded with “ummm yea stardust, if it wasn’t dont you think you would have heard from me by now asking where else it could be?!” holy over reaction batman! see he had asked me where his shirt was and I yelled upstairs and told him where I was *pretty* sure it was. about 10 min later after hearing him walking back and forth up there I yelled up to make sure it was where I had said and he just got annoyed for no good reason. He said I ask too many questions that are unnecessary. He apologized later and said he was just frustrated and crabby but I could go on and on about the things we fought about, movies on tv, dinner, cell phone chargers etc. 🙂

We fight over the stupidest things but we learn to let it go. I have to be honest, if I am PMSing we tend to argue a lot more so if he gets mad at me for something silly like leaving the spoon in the frying pan, I have no choice but to let it go because he could really freak out at me for how nasty I can be for something as silly as putting too much cream in my coffee. i think its normal.

And, I know what you mean. It is SOOO much easier said than done. I like what you said about it not being worth it. YOu know the saying, ‘Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy’? So for me, focusing on not being right (which is REALLY hard for me to do, part of why I wanted to go to law school…Ha), is very hard. But instead, focusing on the changing the perspective on the issue no matter who’s right or wrong and being gracious about it makes all the difference – especially with mundane things that mean absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things.

I think we only fight about stupid things. I’ve never looked back on a fight and thought, “wow, MrsPanda99, you were so smart.” We do our best to choose our battles and whenever there is a serious issue, we sit down and discuss it. If one of us is in a bad mood though or something else set us off, it is easy to take it out on each other. We just do our best not to 🙂

Neither of us like calling to make reservations or order food etc. I usually end up doing it because he absolutely refuses, sometimes I just don’t want to do it and he will freak out if I ask him to do it.